[X] My Assistant

[Gerald]

The first Sol 699 Navcam images are available, so it seems the journey can go on.

[walfy]

News release from NASA mentions this possible future observation for the rovers:

"...Rover cameras may be used to observe the comet [Siding Spring] before the flyby, and to monitor the atmosphere for meteors while the comet's dust trail is closest to the planet..."

What are the chances that Deimos or Phobos could get in the shot along with the comet? That would be extraordinarily cool!

[paraisosdelsiste...]

This image from Opportunity just showed up from the 19th of October:

Are all of these cosmic ray impacts? Or could some be meteors?
Also, a new observation of Siding Spring is avaiable:

[fredk]

Maybe some fog was there over Gale crater.

Tau is certainly high these days, making for a less transparent sky than usual.

Are all of these cosmic ray impacts? Or could some be meteors?

Almost certainly cosmic rays. That 3817 Oppy sequence was taken a couple of hours before closest approach, so it's very unlikely any debris would be striking Mars at that time.

Here's a quick-and-dirty (done while traveling) average of four of the best 50 second pancam exposures. As before, bandpass filtered followed by stretches, before registering on the comet and averaging:

Note the four short vertical dashes extending to the lower left of the comet - that's a star, showing its large relative motion to the comet (or comet to star).

I would now pretty confidently say a faint extension of the coma is visible upwards, which corresponds roughly to the antisun direction.

S/N could be improved a bit by incorporating more frames.